


Speleothems

by Hotaru_Tomoe



Series: The English job [11]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, But in the end they're good, First Kiss, First Time, John is slow, M/M, Mary is gone, No baby, Not TAB/S4 compliant, Post S3, Sex in the Dark, Sherlock is cryptic, Virgin Sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-25 16:27:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9829427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hotaru_Tomoe/pseuds/Hotaru_Tomoe
Summary: Post S3. John is back to Baker Street, and he and Sherlock ends up having sex, without never talking about it. Somehow the relationship works, but John is still quite confused.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t mention Mary because I don’t give a toss about her: for all I care she may be dead, divorced, in Siberia to grow saguaro cacti or in Fukushima to repaint the nuclear reactors, whatever you want.
> 
> Translation of a story of mine from the collection "Hot stuff".
> 
> Here's the [cover](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3070073/chapters/22071128).

_ Speleothems: noun, pl. Secondary mineral deposit formed in caves over thousands of years due to the precipitation of calcite salt. _

  
  


Although he’s immersed in the darkness, John has no way to hide, not from himself, not with Sherlock sleeping at his side after having made love with him, not after all those nights.

How many nights they have already spent in there? Almost a month.

Sometimes… (okay, often, if John wants to be honest, and he should be, at least with himself) he remembers all those nights in his mind, allowing himself to linger in the sweet memory without fear that Sherlock may read his thoughts on his face and mutter something harsh for John’s useless sentimentality.

And remembers, he does.

  
  


* * * * *

  
  


The first time it happened one evening shortly after John’s return to Baker Street.

They were in the living room: John was reading a book and Sherlock was skimming without too much zest through the letters that had accumulated on the coffee table in a week, but suddenly he stopped, holding his breath as he picked up an envelope. John immediately stiffened in his armchair: with the work of his friend that envelope could contain anything, from a macabre message of a psychopath, to anthrax, to - why not - a human ear.

Instead Sherlock raised the envelope from a corner and gave it to John in an almost reverent gesture.

"It's yours" he said, and John took the letter: it was simply the monthly account statement from his bank, nothing that should have led to such a reaction in the detective.

John has never been particularly bright or sharp, but in that moment he understood the reason of the incredulous astonishment of his friend.

_ "You're not really at home until you put your name on the doorbell or on the mailbox" _ someone once had told him. [1]

_ “And until you receive your mail at that address. Because you can bring your clothes with you and put them in the closet, but you do that also when you're traveling and stay in a hotel for a few days; instead, telling the world where you can always be found, where to send letters, where your home is, is another thing” _ John thought, and Sherlock had just realized that John had chosen Baker Street again as his home, this time for good.

And if John had to judge by the expression on his face how he felt about it, he would have concluded that Sherlock was happy.

It was a good chance for John to make a joke, to tease him, by saying,  _ "Mr. Holmes, you aren’t becoming sentimental, right?" _ but he didn’t, because basically he was a romantic himself and his friend’s reaction had warmed his heart, so he just took the envelope with a nod and a smile.

Sherlock, on the other hand, lost all interest in the mail. He stayed for a while with his eyes fixed on the old faded wooden floor, then got up, dropping to the ground all the envelopes that were in his lap, and disappeared into the corridor leading to his bedroom.

John shrugged, collected the mail and put it back on the table, not giving too much importance to Sherlock’s behaviour: he thought that his friend felt embarrassed for showing him fondness, a sentiment, something that Sherlock believed to be a weakness, but the following events proved that John was wrong about it (it was said that he wasn’t particularly sharp).

John sat in his armchair for about half an hour, fiddling with the new app for the blog on the phone, and when he got up to switch off the light in the kitchen and go to sleep, he saw that Sherlock was standing down the hall, leaning against the doorframe of his bedroom.   
John’s eyebrows raised up at the thought that Sherlock had been there all that time.

Why?

Sherlock didn’t do or say anything to him, he just stayed there, motionless, inscrutable, watching John, neither sad nor happy, just deadly serious and solemn, as if John wasn’t just his dull, ordinary flatmate, but a celebrity or a member of the royal family.

Important: that’s how John felt under Sherlock’s gaze. He felt special, unique, like suddenly he was high above the seven billion people living on the Earth, and he had to lean with one hand on the kitchen table, because the thought made him feel dizzy.

Something was happening right now.

Something important, vital, even.

He covered the distance that separated him from Sherlock in five steps.

His friend didn’t moved a muscle until John invaded his personal space, they were so close they could feel each other's breath on their skin, and Sherlock’s bright eyes never left John’s.

Only then Sherlock retreated to his room, and John followed him.

The following days John never tried to justify himself, saying things like  _ "I mean, what else could I do?" _ , because that really didn’t hold water: truth is, there were many other things he could do in that situation, and certainly he couldn’t hide himself behind an  _ "It happened almost by accident" _ because you can stumble by accident, you can die electrocuted by a lightning by accident, but don’t end up in bed with your flatmate by accident.

Truth is that John could have shrugged away that awkward situation with a laugh and asked Sherlock: "What’s up? Have you been drinking?"

He could have dismissed it as one of the many bizarre behaviour of his friend that he would never understand.

He could have simply wished him good night and went up to his room.

He could have done all these things, but he didn’t.

Sherlock hadn’t asked him anything, hadn’t invited John to follow him in his bedroom and, no, John wasn’t magnetized or hypnotized by those (albeit beautiful) eyes, or under a spell: he followed Sherlock of his own free will.

Why?

Why, indeed?

After that first night, John repeatedly asked himself that question, and the best answer he was able to draw was  _ ‘because yes’ _ , that didn’t mean anything, but at the same time seemed to be enough to both of them. Actually he couldn’t talk for Sherlock, just for himself but it’s not that the detective has protested or rejected him, so...

Why it happened?

Why, indeed?

John wondered about it even that first night, but the question got lost somewhere when Sherlock closed the door behind them, and the bedroom was suddenly plunged in total darkness. John was dizzy for a few seconds, he even believed to be suddenly became blind, only to remember that a few days before, Sherlock had covered the glass of the window with sheets of black paper for an experiment on bioluminescence.

John heard a rustle of clothes to his right and started: Sherlock was undressing already. He stretched out his arms, gropingly, in a misguided attempt to determine exactly where Sherlock was, and he wanted to say  _ "Wait, we're going too fast, we haven’t even kissed yet," _ but his hands impacted with Sherlock's bare, warm chest and the words died in his throat.

Sherlock should have deduced his state of mind (even in the dark? How?) because he rested his hands on John’s and leaned toward him, his soft hair touching John’s forehead and his nose caressing John’s cheek, but in the end it was John to cancel the distance between their mouths.

Still dazed by the turn of events, John ended up to place a wet and awkward kiss on Sherlock’s chin and he felt him smiling, which was absurd, because he couldn’t see anything, but John could swear on hundred Bibles that he perceived Sherlock's smile before the detective bowed his head slightly to be able to kiss him on the lips. John enjoyed the sensation of his plump lips a few seconds, then opened his mouth to welcome Sherlock’s tongue, already hungry for him.

The smacking sound of their lips parting echoed strongly in the dead silence of the room.

And it was like going through a bridge leading to a foreign land, looking behind and seeing that the bridge had crumbled down, denying him any possibility of retreat. 

But John had absolutely no intention of retreating.

From then on it was only a series of frantic caresses, hands gripping hair, shoulders, clothes with eager impatience, kisses like bites everywhere on their bodies, and John pushing him back, desperately looking for a support surface, found in the old desk under the window, that protested creaking under the weight of the consulting detective.

They didn’t even undress completely. John brutally grabbed Sherlock by the buttocks to hold him down, rested his head against his shoulder and rubbed against him without any shame, chasing a primordial need, his voice reduced to a string of indistinct moans. 

Sherlock was as frantic and needy as him, he imprisoned John against him with his long limbs, moving his hips as much as the uncomfortable position and John’s iron grip would allow him; he was the one to come first, clawing John’s nape with his fingers and releasing a tremulous sob in John’s ear, but the doctor had barely noticed it, too concentrated on his frenetic pace and the warm and acute pleasure, that exploded a few moments more later in one of the best orgasms of his life.

The first time between them was like that: a dazing tornado of moans and sensations, a crazy ride on a carousel that spinned so wildly that John was barely aware of the surrounding world, like if nothing else existed, outside of their sweaty bodies.

They held each other for an indefinite time, breathing each other's breath, caressing sweaty hair, still enjoying a few kisses, though less urgent now, until John’s legs started to protest vigorously for the awkward position, then he put his hands on Sherlock’s knees to make him loosen his grip.

John kissed him one last time and then left the room without saying any word. The light in the kitchen was still on, and it was kind of shocking after all the time John spent in the dark, and forced him to shield his eyes with one hand.

John went up in his bedroom, cleaned up briefly the mess in his pants, stripped and laid down on the bed on his back, waiting for a panic attack that never came; indeed he relived in his mind what had just happened in Sherlock’s bedroom and all the sensations he felt: the smooth skin of Sherlock shoulder, the taste of his mouth, and that shaky breath Sherlock had released when he had come. If only John had been a bit younger, probably he would have been ready for a second round, instead he fell asleep shortly after.

 

The panic appeared briefly the next morning, when John went down for breakfast: he had feared a long and awkward silence between them, eyes that hadn’t the courage to raise, even some inopportune blushes, instead Sherlock came to meet him on the stairs waving the morning newspaper, smiling and excited: "There was a theft in the vault of a bank, John. During the night five hundred thousand pounds in cash disappeared, but according to the security system, the vault hasn’t been opened."

The case was exciting, no doubt, so they run to the bank and, between desperate branch managers, incredulous security technicians and cops who swarmed incessantly on the crime scene, it didn’t seem the most appropriate time to talk about what happened between them the night before.

Problem was that they neither talked later, once back at home, and John didn’t find a way to broach the subject: each approach seemed wrong to him, too harsh or too awkward.

_ "What we did last night?" _ was really a too stupid question to ask: John knew what they had done from a technical point of view, and in any case he didn’t mean it like that... and fuck it, if he couldn’t clearly formulate the question in his own head, he doubted that Sherlock would have understood his intentions, and John didn’t want to hurt him with some incautious or wrong words. 

It seemed that, with the approach of night, the words took refuge in their nest as diurnal birds, refusing to reappear until sunrise.

_ "Would you like to do it again?" _ seemed a too vulgar question to ask. Or maybe John was just afraid that his voice would betray his desire to do it again. Yes, because at least for him, John didn’t feel no shame or regret for the hectic and spectacular sex they had and he had no objection to a second time.

Sherlock didn’t answered to his unasked questions, not directly, but just like the previous night, he got up from his armchair, went down into the hallway, stopped in the doorway of his bedroom and looked at John, and the former soldier decided that questions could wait as he raised up from his armchair to follow him.

The second time was less urgent and more tender. Sherlock’s lips, that were on his as soon as John closed the door behind them, didn’t inflamed his body and they kissed languidly for several minutes. They almost managed to undress completely, until John, with his trousers and pants rolled down around the ankles, stumbled as he was trying to shove Sherlock on the bed, and they both tumbled on it.

After a second of embarrassed silence, they both broke out laughing, while John was fighting against his damn clothes and finally managed to throw them on the floor. They were still lying askew on the bed, they were a mess, but John discovered that it hadn’t any importance in the dark, it didn’t matter if it wasn’t tidy and perfect, nothing else mattered when he slid his hand under Sherlock’s boxer, touching for the first time in his life the erection of another man. Sherlock melted instantly beneath him, unable to do anything but  moan and tremble and sink his nails into John’s back in sync with the movements of John's hand sliding over him. Like the night before, Sherlock came without a shout, only with a deeper sigh, and so quickly that if John had had doubts about his inexperience, that night they were completely dissipated.

For this reason the former soldier was really surprised when he sensed that Sherlock was sliding down on the mattress and caressing his pelvis, and he really would have to speak and say him that, no, he didn’t have to do it, but almost as if he had read his thoughts, Sherlock made an annoyed grunt and continued stubbornly in his slow descent, with only the determination to make up for his lack of experience, which however didn’t prevent John to lose his mind and sink voluptuously his hands in Sherlock’s curls while the younger man was sucking him.

 

*

 

Sherlock didn’t removed the black sheets of papers from the window of his bedroom and John took it as an invitation to continue... whatever there was between them.

It's not that they did it every night; John was no longer young enough or strong enough to hold on such a rhythm, and then there were days when he came back home from work exhausted and collapsed asleep on the sofa, nights when Sherlock needed to think and played the violin, and nights when he and Sherlock stayed up running through London to solve yet another case of kidnapping or extortion.

However, when there was a chance, for him to follow Sherlock in the bedroom has become a sort of routine.

No, wrong.

What there is between them can’t be called a routine: the term refers to a series of the same events that are repeated time over time.

What there is between them has instead proved to be ineffable, like plumes of smoke in the dark, and it’s slowly but constantly changing in something different and new compared to what it was the first time.

 

*

 

There was the night when Sherlock, instead of waiting for him on the doorframe of his bedroom, opened the door for John, but then went in the bathroom for an evening shower, thing in itself strange, because Sherlock usually took his shower in the morning, and they weren’t fallen into the Thames nor took a tour in the sewers.

Only when the water continued to flow for much longer than the canonical five minutes employed by the consulting detective to wash, John understood and  _ \- oh god - _ he almost had an undignified stroke in the hallway of their flat.

He looked into the bedroom, transversely illuminated by a beam of light coming from the hallway, and his fears…  _ "No, sod that! Don’t say bullshit, Watson"  _ he reproached himself, his hopes were confirmed.

Yes, hopes. Hopes about something on which he had fantasized for some days.

There was a small, anonymous bottle of lube on the bedside table, on the side that John, during the nights, had chosen as 'his', and there was no need to talk about what they were about to do: it was crystal clear, and once again he couldn’t find any right word to say.

There weren’t any condoms, and there was no need to talk about it too, because John knew he was clean, and so was Sherlock, otherwise condoms would have been there, John had no doubt.

The doctor undressed hastily, throwing his clothes in a corner of the room, then searched for them and folded neatly, laying them down on the desk where he and Sherlock had made love the first time.

He laid down on the bed, then he sat up with his back against the headboard, he covered himself with the duvet, he thought better of it and rolled the duvet at the foot of the bed, he changed his mind again and folded in half, reproaching himself not to be so bloody nervous, and Sherlock, after the shower, surprised him like that, still trying to decide how to arrange the sheets.

Sherlock turned off the bathroom light, closed the door, laid on the half unmade bed and let out an amused chuckle, before taking one of John’s hand in his, and rolling the doctor on himself.

In that moment John thought that everything was deeply unfair, that Sherlock should be the nervous one, not him. Sherlock was a virgin and he an expert, dammit! He wasn’t suppose to be the one with shaky hands, while Sherlock came to his rescue, calmly unscrewed the cap of the lube and put the bottle on his palm. John wasn’t suppose to be the one with an inconvenient lump in his throat as he was preparing Sherlock as gently as possible, he wasn’t supposed to be the one who needed to be be soothed with sweet caresses on his back and light kisses on his forehead.

John wondered how the hell Sherlock could make him always do whatever he wanted.

_ "Or maybe” _ he thought as he drove slowly into Sherlock’s delicious heat  _ “he's just much better than me to understand what I want." _

Yes, it should be the truth, because at each thrust, a silent  _ "Yes, yes, finally, mine, god, mine" _ seemed to explode in the air.

 

*

 

There was a night when John didn’t come home after his shift at the clinic, because a former mate of his from university was in town for a conference and stopped to greet him, they spent a couple of hours in a café chatting about their past, common friends and old professors; John forgot the phone in his office and when he came back to retrieve it, he found ten calls - not messages, calls - from Sherlock. He left the clinic and was about to call him back, when he saw that Sherlock was there, in the rain, eyes narrowed and stormy, lips clenched tight, his body trembling with indignation. He turned without a word, heading home with martial steps and John ran after him, as always, scrambling to explain that she was just a friend who happened to be there, that he forgot his phone and he wasn’t deliberately ignoring him, but Sherlock didn’t slow down or turned around, and the doctor feared he had screwed up everything.

Once at home, John was ready to repeat everything to Sherlock all over again, at risk of becoming hoarse, until the drama queen he had as a lover had understood that nothing happened with that woman and she was nothing to him, but he couldn’t say anything, because Sherlock took him by the hand and pushed him forcefully in the bedroom, without even giving John the time to dry after running in the rain.

A funny thought crossed John’s mind: If only he had longer hair, Sherlock would have dragged him by his head, like a caveman from a joke.

That night Sherlock claimed his ownership over John, stripped him unceremoniously (the sound of torn cloth was the funeral of his best shirt), kissed and squeezed his body with a violence barely restrained by a tiny glimmer of lucidity.

And John let him do it, let Sherlock maneuver and push him all fours on the bed, because that rude physicality worked much better than all the words the doctor had stuttered before. John let himself to be taken for the first time in his life, the strong smell of semen and sweat mingled with the fresh one of the rain, Sherlock body was heavy and hot on his back, and it was a so all-encompassing experience that he didn’t even noticed that Sherlock fiercely sank his teeth into good shoulder when he came.

John had to use the gentamicin for a week on that reddened bite and kept patting the wound under his clothes with a strange pride.

After all, who else could boast of having made the only consulting detective in the world lose his mind like that?

 

*

 

There was also the night when they hadn’t sex, but they spent hours just fondling each other to discover the different zones of their bodies: the erogenous ones, the ticklish ones, the most sensitive and the most strange ones. Sherlock obviously was passionate about his scar, he probed it with his fingertips, then with his tongue and finally rubbed his prickly cheek on it. John instead explored every centimeter of his smooth skin, stopping whenever he felt a mole under his fingertips to kiss or lick it, and it was the most amazingly intimate moment he had ever shared with another human being.

  
  


* * * * *

  
  


And so, John thinks, coming out from his memories, it had happened and it continues to happen  _ because yes _ , because it’s wonderful enough to do it again and again, and now, when evening comes, he wants nothing more than to be in Sherlock’s dark bedroom.

Incredibly this strange relationship is working without need for words, and eventually John gave up to ask Sherlock any questions he had in his mind (and still has), lingering in this bizarre situation that sees them as ordinary flatmates by day, in front of anyone else, and lovers by night, in the privacy of a bedroom which has become  _ “theirs”, _ without anyone has officially declared it.

However there is a moment, along the confines between wakefulness and sleep, when it seems to John that his body has dissolved, faded into the blackness around him, and that the only thing left of him are his thoughts, floating through the silent void, and those questions resurface.

_ Does he loves Sherlock? _

_ Does Sherlock loves him? _

_ Where are they going? _

_ What have they right now? _

_ What are they? _

John would like to have only a glimmer of clarity, but at the same time he thinks that those questions can only silently exist in that strange dark, nocturnal dimension, in the confined space of Sherlock’s bedroom. To say them aloud out of there would be risky, it would make them real, it would mean having to give them an answer, and John isn’t still sure to be ready to do it.

Actually he doesn’t know if he will ever be able do it, because that questions are very similar to the space that surrounds him: fluid, elusive, formless, and how can be described or understood something like that?

John knows he has surrendered to sleep only when he wakes up hour laters, sweating under a duvet too heavy for him, that night after night has become more and more familiar, although he’s still aware that he isn’t in his bed.

He doesn’t know what time it is: besides being completely dark, there isn’t even a digital alarm clock in Sherlock’s bedroom, it seems almost that Time no longer exists in there.

It may be the middle of the night when John decides to slip away to return to his bedroom, or just before dawn, it depends on how tired he is and how many time they had sex, but John never stops until morning and they never leave that room together. Sherlock is always sleeping, or he’s pretending to sleep when John leaves, but no one ever says anything, and John, after all, is okay with that, because it seems a bit easier that way, he isn’t forced to give voice to his questions, and everything stays confined in that bedroom.

The former soldier is well aware that this is an imperfect balance, but their relationship started in a so strange way, and to be with Sherlock is so different from all his previous amorous adventures, that he doesn’t know how else to behave. 

It's like having to assemble an extremely complicated machinery without any instruction manual, the only thing he can do is to proceed by trial and error, observing that mass of lopsided pieces and hoping that everything doesn’t crumble under his eyes.

He moves aside the duvet and he’s about to put his feet on the floor, when Sherlock’s left arm slips around his waist. The arm doesn’t squeeze him, nor make a move to bring John back on the mattress, it’s just there, but since it’s something that Sherlock has never done before, John doesn’t know how to react and remains motionless as well, half-sitting and half-lying, feeling the warmth of Sherlock’s skin against his. It’s not unpleasant, just unexpected, maybe Sherlock is sleeping and did it unintentionally.

John wants to ask him if he’s awake, but he knows that that question will arise other ones, like in a chain, and eventually they’ll get to where maybe they’re not ready to be, yet.

They’re both immersed in the darkness and can’t see if they are walking on solid ground or if they’re surrounded by deep crevasses just waiting for them to put a foot wrong on them.

Perhaps he could try to say something reassuring, like  _ "Okay, I'm staying a bit longer" _ but they never speak once they cross the threshold of the bedroom, and John has this stupid fear that his voice will be absorbed by the darkness as soon it’ll leave his mouth and his words won’t reach Sherlock, as if they were floating into the cosmic void.

When a twinge of pain crosses his back, reminding him of his awkward position, John slowly lays down again, leaving only one leg out of the duvet to cool off; the grip of Sherlock’s arm around his waist loosens slightly, and a a deeper and almost satisfied breath from the sleuth (but this could be just John’s imagination) rings out in the narrow space between them.

Even if the machinery John is watching now seems more complicated than ever, it’s not bad to sleep in Sherlock’s bed until morning, when the garbage truck that violently slams Mrs. Hudson bins on the ground wakes him like a rude alarm clock. Indeed, to tell the truth, John feels better this morning, as he fills the kettle with water and makes a toast with ham, which is weird, because until now he hadn’t realized that he had a weight on his chest, a weight that made him anxious every time he sneaked out Sherlock’s bedroom to return to his own, a guilt for leaving him alone, and a strange discomfort, as if he was doing the wrong thing.

The detective emerges from the bedroom almost an hour later, with his eyes still half closed, he drops like a dead weight on a kitchen chair, muttering something about Colombian drug traffickers, and he’s so cute, with his messy hair, the voice full of sleep and interspersed with yawns and pillow marks on his face, that for a moment John is tempted to kiss him on the top of his curly head.

But he can’t do it, right?

They are in the daylight, out of the bedroom, and John believes that that’s an uncrossable border.

He hands Sherlock a cup of very sweet coffee, the sleuth narrows slightly his eyes as he takes it, then he asks John to bring him laptop and cell phone and begins a long conversation in Spanish with god knows who.

 

*

 

Of course, words haven’t been swallowed up by the darkness, they’re where they’ve always been, because the two of them are simply in a bedroom with no light, not in interstellar space. However, when Sherlock's voice rings out in the silence, after they’ve made love, it takes John by surprise, so much he lets out a frightened gasp, as if a bomb had just exploded.

It happens a couple of weeks after Sherlock has quietly asked John not to return to his room and they began to sleep together until morning.

Sherlock spoons him (this is new, too) and starts talking like a BBC documentary narrator, while John tries to recover from the surprise and wonders what's going on.

"In Brazil scientists have discovered a new species of fungi, the  _ Ophiocordyceps camponoti-balzani _ , that infects the brain of certain species of ants, taking control of them. It forces the insect to search for a sunny area suitable for its development, then kills it and the mushroom sprouts from its head, scattering around its spores. The corpse of the dead ant can also infect other healthy insects."

John shudders in horror hearing the so detailed description.

"It’s dreadful!"

Sherlock shakes his head and strokes John’s arms to calm the goosebumps.

"No, it's fascinating. Fungi are extraordinary organisms: they possess some traits in common with the plants, but they can’t be classified among them, and neither among animals for obvious reasons, although their cell walls are made of chitin, which is also found in arthropods, and not of cellulose. The scientists had to create a new kingdom just for them. And did you know that some mycelia can live a thousand years?" [2]

"No, I didn’t."

"John?"

"Hm?"

"Can I set up a mushroom crop in your bedroom?"

"Why my room?"

"It has the right temperature and humidity conditions" he replies, shrugging, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

John imagines exotic fungi spores that take control of his mind, like in a bad zombie movie, and shakes his head vigorously.

"Hell no, I have to live there! Is this the reason why you talked?" He exclaims angrily.

Without saying a word, the detective turns away from him, leaving John astounded: Sherlock has no right to be angry with him, when he was the one who proposed to transform his room into a greenhouse for killer fungi!

 

*

 

John was framed by Mrs. Hudson and Mrs. Turner and spent the whole Sunday to help them to empty old trunks full of odd stuff and to take it to the local church for a lucky dip, and now he’s dead tired. However he can’t complain, because Sherlock is giving him a back massage worthy of a professional physiotherapist, and John is pondering to pretend to be exhausted more often, if that is the reward.

He’s about to fall asleep under the gentle touch of those wonderful hands, when Sherlock clears his throat as if he’s about to begin a solemn speech.

"Due to the increasing lack of building land in the city, in the past years were exhumed very old graves, some of them dating back to the seventeenth century. From the examination of human remains, it’s estimated that at least 2% of people were buried alive; the percentage rises to 10% if you take into account the years when the plague was raging: back then doctors hadn’t time to make accurate checks and, in the absence of breath, the body was immediately taken away for the burial, even if the person was still alive."

John frowns, wondering if Sherlock has developed a strange kink for telling horror stories while they’re in the darkness of their bedroom.

"Creepy" he said with annoyance: as a doctor, he knows that a premature burial is not just an urban legend.

"The dead bodies of those people buried alive” Sherlock continues, undaunted “have been found in the most contorted positions. Some people tried to break through the coffin with kicks, but they just made it collapse and ended up dying by asphyxiation when the soil penetrated the wood of the coffin; other people broke their nails and knuckles scratching the wood and died of hunger and thirst in a slow agony. Can you imagine it, John? The terror in  becoming aware of their situation, the screams, the cries for help that no one can hear..."

Suddenly, the weight of Sherlock sitting on his backside appears much less pleasant to John, and he shakes his body to make him move.

"Shit, what a distressing image! Now I’ll not be able to sleep” the former soldier complains “Why the hell did you tell me this story?"

It was almost better when they didn’t speak at all.

"I have always considered a burial an useless waste of space and resources: I thought often about it when I faked my death."

"I don’t want to talk about that" John says in a sharp tone: that's a memory that he would like to erase for good from his life.

"When I’ll die, I wish my body was donated to a hospital for scientific purpose or, if it’s not possible, I want to be cremated."

"Why are you telling me that?" John asks, increasingly crossed and bewildered by that surreal conversation.

Sherlock’s weight lifts, and the detective throw himself on the mattress, away from him: once again he got angry and John can’t bloody understand why.

 

*

 

John unties delicately their intertwined fingers and reaches out to stroke one protruding cheekbone, while Sherlock raises his head to kiss him.

He loves to lie down on Sherlock after they have made love, and he would never have imagined that Sherlock liked to linger in John’s affection and caresses.

When John rises on his elbows to slip out of him, Sherlock whimpers a pouty "no", tightening even more firmly the long legs around his waist, and John relaxes again on his body: he doesn’t mind at all to stay a little longer inside him.

"Stalactites are formed in caves because of the constant dripping of water that penetrates through the rocks."

It's amazing to hear Sherlock with his head resting on his chest: his voice echoes through the chest cavity and seems even deeper.

"Every single drop of water leaves behind a microscopic deposit of calcium carbonate and that's how the stalactite stretches from the ceiling of the cave."

"Mh", John commented neutrally: he doesn’t want to risk to annoy his lover this time. Again, he has no idea where Sherlock wants to end up with those speeches, but geology is a more pleasant topic than people buried alive and zombie ants.

"And if the rocks on the ground and the other conditions are optimal, at the foot of a the stalactite, a stalagmite will arise and grow. Thousands and thousands of years will pass, billions of tiny droplets of water will fall at a constant rate, but in the end the two speleothems will meet and then it will be impossible to distinguish one from another, because they will merge into one column, and will never be separated again."

"Fascinating" John mutters: thanks to Sherlock soothing voice, he can almost visualize the moment when the two rock formations are joined, and a strange emotion reverberates through him.

"But it doesn’t always happen. Indeed, it’s quite rare” Sherlock continues, stroking John’s neck “You see, if the ground under the stalactite is tilted too much, the water slips away, if it’s too deep an underground lake will be formed, but there will be no stalagmite and, accordingly, no column will be created."

"They need the right conditions."

"A lot more than that: they need a miracle" Sherlock whispers in the dark.

"A mir...? Oh."

Shortly before he joined the Army, John had a girlfriend named April. John’s rugby mates spoke ill about her, saying that April was in love with the sound of her voice, because she always talked. John was annoyed by their malice, but objectively it was true: April was always talking about something, everything, especially after they had sex. She talked about houses and furnitures, she said that she liked so much the orange colour and it was a tragedy, because it wasn’t a very common colour for tiles and paints, but her dream was to have an orange bathroom in her future house. April talked about churches, ceremonies and children, fantasized about retirement and grandchildren, even though she was only twenty-two years old, and she saw already the future clear ahead of her.

They broke up because their dreams at that time didn’t coincide at all (and probably wouldn’t have coincided even in the future), because John was eager to reach his battlefield and April wanted to drag him in another direction.

But this is not the point.

The point are the talks that are made in bed with your partner about the future together.

Sherlock wants to use his room upstairs as a greenhouse for mushrooms, because he wants John to move for good in his bedroom. Their bedroom.

He told John how to dispose of his corpse after his death because he sees the two of them still together even when they will be both old and Death will come to knock at their door.

He has just confessed that two of them are like a stalactite and a stalagmite that have joined together like a miracle and they’re inseparable by now.

Of course there’ll not be any greenhouse for killer fungi, but this is not the point, either.

The point is that Sherlock has simply tried to tell him all those things. In his own way, of course, because Sherlock is Sherlock and he’s not April.

And perhaps Sherlock has also answered to all the unspoken questions that fluttered inside John’s head like a swarm of angry wasps, but John didn’t understand and continued to grope in the dark with his eyes closed for habit, without seeing that the light was already on for some time.

_ He loves Sherlock. _

_ Sherlock loves him. _

_ They are walking together into the future. _

_ They have something precious in their hands. _

_ And they’re a fucking couple. _

John clings to him and thinks that now would be the best time for a full blown love confession, but Sherlock’s lips are doing deliciously wicked things near his left ear and John’s penis twitches almost instantly inside him, and perhaps it’s not be very romantic, but Sherlock seems to appreciate it, a lot, judging from his satisfied moans and his possessive hands that grab John’s butt.

 

*

 

The next morning, John is sitting at the kitchen table making breakfast, without any uncertainties or harassing questions about their relationship anymore pressing against the walls of his skull, and he really feel lighter. He has the impression that all the darkness of the world have dissipated and that the complicated machinery he was trying to assemble without any instruction manual, was not that complicated in the end.

It was a long road for them to get here: just like a stalactite and a stalagmite that approached each other, inch by inch, very slowly, they have been groping hesitantly in the dark (well, maybe he did, much more than Sherlock), but eventually they understood each other.

And perhaps all the ideas and rules that John has made up in his mind, like that they can’t touch or kiss outside of Sherlock’s room, exist only in his head and aren’t real.

He decides to test his theory immediately, when Sherlock leaves the bedroom and walks past him, claiming his tea. John pushes back his chair, grabs him by the hips and pulls him, placing him between his legs.

Sherlock is slightly surprised, but doesn’t move, just looks at him curiously, waiting for John’s next move; he’s wearing only his pajama pants and the blue robe, he has just come out from under the covers, he’s still very hot and slightly sweaty, and John licks his lips as he unties the knot of the belt of his dressing gown, baring Sherlock’s pale and soft skin. John pushes his face against his stomach, peppering it with many wet and hungry kisses, and feels the muscles twitch with pleasure under his mouth as Sherlock whimpers.

John dares to raise his eyes on him and what he sees is breathtaking: Sherlock has his lips parted, he’s breathing fast and there’s a beautiful blush that’s spreading from his cheeks to the long neck. John strokes his pelvic bones with his thumbs, slowly following their profile, Sherlock arches his back under John’s ministrations, and then cries in surprise when John yanks down his pajama pants, exposing his leaking erection to the cold morning air.

Since when they started to have sex, John has touched, sucked, stroked, made everything to him, but he has never seen him in the daylight, so now he takes his time, stroking his elegant cock from the root to the slippery tip, covering and uncovering the glans with each passage of his hand.

"John, oh... yes, yes!" Sherlock gasps and nods frantically, his beautiful curls bouncing against his forehead; he’s unstable and tries to put his hands on John shoulders, but John grabs and ties them behind his back with the silk belt of his robe. John’s eyes and hands travel along the body in front of him: Sherlock is half-naked, with his robe open and at the mercy of John’s whims, he might seem like the actor of a homemade porn, if it weren’t for his innate grace, which makes him look like an otherworldly beautiful creature even in that circumstance.

The former soldier bows his head, sucking the heavy testicles, and Sherlock throws back his head, crying, his neck muscles are stretched and John can even see the veins pulsing on his chest: it’s a magnificent view, but it’s not what he wants now.

"Sherlock” he say “Sherlock, look at me."

Sherlock reclines his head forward and looks fascinated at John’s protruding tongue, that is licking his penis from the base to the frenulum. Then John opens his mouth and closes it hungrily around the glans, never taking his eyes away from his.

John is fascinated by the all the emotions on Sherlock’s face: he’s biting his lips to stifle a too sharp cry of pleasure, his forehead is knitted in an expression somewhere between ecstasy and agony, his lashes flickers fast every time John caresses with his tongue a too sensitive spot, his pupils are so dilated that his eyes seem to be black. Sherlock watches him obediently, until John sneaks a hand between his legs to rub roughly his perineum, then he squeezes his eyes shut, shaking like a leaf and almost collapsing on John.

Sherlock call his name again and again, among moans, heavy sighs and syncopated breaths that escape his plump lips. Yet few tugs on his testicles and a vigorous sucking, and for the first time, John can see, not just hear, Sherlock reaching orgasm and it’s glorious. Sherlock’s legs tremble, not longer able to hold him up, and the detective falls like a dead weight on John, who holds him in a possessive embrace.

"You're incredible, a true marvel” John whispers on his clavicle “From now on I want always watch you when we make love."

Sherlock mumbles something indistinct and John has to ask him to repeat.

"I said that you could have told me, I would have left the light on."

"I don’t mind the way we did so far, it has been one of the most amazing experiences of my life” John assures him, licking a drop of sweat that is sliding down Sherlock’s neck “but you're so beautiful that I could spend hours just looking at you. Unless you prefer to keep making love with the lights off."

"Um, no. For me that's fine too."

John feels Sherlock's lips stretch into a smile against the skin of his neck, but he has still one last question that’s nagging at him.

"So why did you want to do it always in the dark?"

Sherlock sighs and a long silence stretches between them.

"I didn’t want to look at you as I look at the rest of the world" he says quietly, although his voice carries a typical Sherlockian modulation that’s saying  _ "Can’t you understand that by yourself?” _

John must think about it for a moment, but then understands the importance of Sherlock’s words: his eyes are fundamental to his work, in a few seconds Sherlock is able to decode a crime scene or to dissect a suspect in a cascade of cold, cynical and scientific deductions, but he didn’t want to do the same thing with John, because John is anything like that.

John is a miracle to Sherlock's eyes, and he didn’t want him to feel like one of the corpses he examines on the autopsy table.

John almost feels like crying at the thought and tries clumsily to hide his emotions behind a fake bravado.

"Oh really? Because it seems to me that you were embarrassed."

Sherlock raises his head so fast that it’s likely to impact with John's nose.

"Don’t be silly!"

"Really?” the doctor keeps teasing him “but, judging by how you blush, someone could say you're shy and... OUCH!"

Sherlock bites John jokingly, but not too much, on the throat and then gives him an exquisite threat.

"Tonight we’ll leave the lights on, my dear John, and I'll be the one to make you blush like a schoolgirl."

"I'm counting on it" John answers, before grabbing Sherlock’s chin with his fingers and kissing him again.

**Author's Note:**

> [1] My friend Macaron said me this beautiful phrase, and I was inspired.  
> [2] It’s the vegetative apparatus of fungi that runs underground. The mushrooms we see on the ground emerges from the mycelium. I took Sherlock's speech about the killer fungus and zombie ants (which do exist) from the National Geographic website and, yep, I totally agree with Sherlock: mushrooms are awesome ♥


End file.
